AFGHANISTAN - Sept. 18 - Foreign Banks Allowed.

Getting operating licences on Sept. 18 are Standard Chartered (UK), the National Bank of Pakistan and a micro credit bank backed by the Agha Khan Foundation. Karzai said after signing the law on Sept. 16: "Afghans are rich people, but their money is all in other countries. I want them to bring their money to Afghanistan". (Standard Chartered is the first to open in the war-ravaged country, where most large transactions involve suitcases full of cash. Strong in developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the bank is to open a branch in Kabul to handle transactions for import-export companies and the burgeoning international community, says John Jones, the bank's project director in Kabul. The bank will introduce automatic teller machines and may eventually open branches in other large cities. We're delighted the laws have been passed. We've never operated here before and will need to feel our way". Afghanistan's banking system collapsed along with its Communist government in 1992, when the Islamic mujahedeen captured Kabul. Afghans scrambled to move their money abroad, often to Pakistan, as the country headed into a decade of civil war. Central Bank Governor Anwar ul-Haq Ahady says Kabul would like to privatise the six banks operating in the country, all of which are state-owned, but acknowledges "they are poorly capitalised and there have been few offers. Restructuring looks more plausible". Most Afghans use hawala - the Arabic word for trust - a system in which funds are sent through individual money traders in one country to their counterparts in another. Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani says rich Afghans, including businessmen now living in Dubai and Moscow who hold as much as $5 bn abroad, have been pressing for the banking changes, and add: "We'll do everything we can to enable the return of these Afghanis". Karzai also passed a law giving the Central Bank complete independence. The CB is charged with keeping a lid on inflation and protecting the value of the national currency the afghani)